Everyone wanted the circus to end. That is, until the circus actually ended.

Such is life for the Miami Heat now, heading into the offseason.

A season of intense scrutiny, criticism, attention and intrigue ended without a championship, and while getting out of the spotlight for a while this summer may be of some consolation to LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, nothing will completely soothe the fact that Year One of the Big Three ended with a loss in the NBA finals.

“There was really no way to prepare for a season like this,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Tuesday, after Miami gathered for its exit meetings.

Even at the end, James found his some of his words overly dissected and, he said, misinterpreted.

His offseason began with a clarification of something said after Sunday’s night’s season-ending loss to the new champion Dallas Mavericks, when part of his answer to a question about people being happy to see the Heat lose included the phrase “they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems.”

On Tuesday, James tried to clean up the mess he inadvertently created.